Little did we know that the “unscrupulous professionals” would prove to be such people as IndyMac president Richard H. Wohl and Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, but, as University of Missouri associate professor William K. Black points out in this interview, top government and industry officials had ample time and ample information to prevent today’s financial crisis, but chose to do nothing.

Uncovering the factors that led to that fateful choice is the reason why Black, who was a senior regulator during the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, supports the creation of a Pecora Commission, modeled after the 1930s investigative panel headed by Ferdinand Pecora that exposed the corrupt practices that helped fuel the Great Depression.

Black said that such a commission should look at the compensation incentives that encouraged mortgage fraud as well as the “complete regulatory failure” that took place during the Bush administration. (That includes the failure of the Bush administration and the then Republican-led Congress to beef up law enforcement resources at the FBI so that it could more aggressively go after the mortgage fraud it knew was there.) The commission’s work would clarify that the mortgage crisis was driven by systemic problems within the financial industry and the rating agencies that were supposed to be honest evaluators of the debt being sold by these institutions. It was not, as conservatives would have us believe, primarily driven by individual home buyers trying to game the system or regulators pressuring banks to market unsound loans to people of color.

Congress is moving toward creating a panel along the lines of the Pecora Commission. A mortgage fraud bill that was passed by the Senate on Monday includes a provision that would create a bipartisan 10-member panel with subpoena power. It would be structured in a manner similar to the 9-11 commission and made up of people who are not politicians or government officials. As Black points out, there is much work for that commission to do.

The government may stay open, but the fight continues against a GOP budget that wants to cut close to $3 trillion over 10 years from services for lower-income households to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. The people say "Not one penny."

The Trump presidency, like a monster hurricane, is doing unprecedented damage to our democracy and to our progress toward being a nation that is more equitable and fair.

About Isaiah J. Poole

Isaiah J. Poole is communications director of People's Action, and has been the editor of OurFuture.org since 2007. Previously he worked for 25 years in mainstream media, most recently at Congressional Quarterly, where he covered congressional leadership and tracked major bills through Congress. Most of his journalism experience has been in Washington as both a reporter and an editor on topics ranging from presidential politics to pop culture. His work has put him at the front lines of ideological battles between progressives and conservatives. He also served as a founding member of the Washington Association of Black Journalists and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.